Video Conferencing with French schools

[K.C.Leblanc]

Has anyone done a video conference with a school in France. Not SKYPE or MSN but a proper H.323 conference with a dedicated VC unit.

 

I'm going to have to do this in September.

 

I'm wondering do they have a system similar to Janet Video Conferencing service that I'll have to go through, or will the school just have an internet connection.

 

Also how well resourced are french schools, are they likely to have a Polycom and a full time network team, or will it be a web cam brought in from home and setup by a teacher (as was the case when I VCed a school in the US)?

[Sylv3r]

We conference with a secondary school in france quite often.

 

They are unable to dial us directly and we can't dial them for some bizarre reason and have to go through their county hall equivalent who then forward us to the school.

 

They have Polycom kit the same as what we have, I am not sure of their connection speed but quality is generally good. This school does not have their own IT Support and require a technical person from their LA (equivalent) to come out to the school when we wish to conference. For some reason everytime we conference with them they invite the town mayor so they make it quite a big deal.

[K.C.Leblanc]

They have Polycom kit the same as what we have, I am not sure of their connection speed but quality is generally good. This school does not have their own IT Support and require a technical person from their LA (equivalent) to come out to the school when we wish to conference. For some reason everytime we conference with them they invite the town mayor so they make it quite a big deal.

 

Oh god, we've got a teacher from France doing a years placement with us, I just hope she's relatively technical and speaks good English. She's hoping to do conferences every week, which I told the MFL bunch is realistic. I didn't count on having to work around the local politicians.